Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Best screenwriting advice I could give

The hardest screenplay we ever had to write came as a result of the easiest, quickest pitch we ever made. It also taught us a very important lesson about screenwriting.

Fall 1988. I had just finished my first year of minor league play-by-play, calling the action for the mighty Syracuse Chiefs. I had kept a journal but didn’t know what to do with it. My agent suggested instead of submitting it for publication I should pitch it as a movie. TV comedy writer goes off to announce minor league baseball. He reminded me that I’d make a whole lot more money selling it as a movie rather than a book. That appealed to the “artist” in me.

My partner David Isaacs and I had just turned in a movie to Columbia and they loved it. (Not enough to make but still.) We were the “flavors of the month”. So we set up a pitch meeting with them first. The meeting lasted three minutes… and that was including the pleasantries. Here’s how it went:

Me: This is what we want to do – “GOOD MORNING VIET NAM meets BULL DURHAM”.

Them: "Sold!"

And that was it. Ten minutes later we’re in the Smokehouse restaurant toasting each other. And then something occurred to me. I asked the fatal question:

Me: "So, what exactly is the story?"

That was the end of the celebration. What WAS the story? We couldn’t do what really happened. My family moved to Syracuse, I broadcast the games, the team lost more games than they won, and the season ended. Not exactly riveting stuff.

We had to create a whole new scenario. First thing we did was make the writer single so we could concoct a love story. My wife said, “What?! I do all the work, raise two small kids in an unfamiliar city that’s either 100 degrees or pouring rain and I’m not even in the damn movie?!” She had a legitimate beef.

We had to create stakes for the writer, a plotline that was dramatic and funny, and dream up some theme so the movie was about something. I'd tell you what they were but they all changed twenty times. I don't even remember half of them.

Thus began a series of drafts, each different, each a bitch to write. I think we finally got it, but that was after years of dead ends. The writer/announcer saves baseball in the small town and provides it with an identity and hope. He learns lessons, matures as a person, and of course gets the girl.

Ultimately the movie was never made. By the time we solved it the regime that bought it was long gone. The regime that followed them was long gone.

But the moral is this: Always have the story FIRST. Without that you’re just wandering in the wilderness. And breaking the story is the hardest part so your natural inclination is to say, “let’s just sell it first and then deal with that”. Beware!!

Same is true if you’re writing a spec. More so actually because you don’t want to work your ass off for six months only to come to the sad realization once you’re institutionalized that you have nothing.

For us there's a happy ending. We learned our lesson and did not come in a few years later and pitch MY DINNER WITH ANDRE meets BARRY LYNDON.

..."But the moral is this: Always have the story FIRST. Without that you’re just wandering in the wilderness."...

Good analogy. Maybe that's why the Book of Exodus is so long... I can imagine Moses sitting under the shade of a palm tree, writing it all down on parchment, and thinking out loud to himself "Man, how do I end this thing?"...

What if you were to have the characters and the premise first? I would imagine from those two the story would come easily, given that they are clear characters who would react to being in that premise.

I have Friday question, too. Hohw does one write a pilot show that explains who is what and why without it coming across as a exposition-a-thon?

Just for fun I once tried to write a television script (Former rock star owns a music shop) and I couldn't figure out how to write a 'first' episode that wasn't deadly dull and full of too much 'as you remember, blah blah blah.'

I am attempting to write a spec and it's slow going because I feel like I am getting so caught up in plot that I can't figure out where to start or how to end it without the script being 300 pages long.

Ken, great story and not all that different from a pitch WE sold. It was so crazy we later turned the experience into a short film! We took some poetic license and gave it a Hollywood ending;) Here's a link if you and your readers wanna take a look.

The thing is, the FIRST idea that you figured you couldn't do (i.e. the REAL story) could have been a great way to go. Folks that have seen a lot of movies have seen the one you planned thousands of times...with the right writing, the real story (with wife, losing team that doesn't get better) could have been fantastic and not as predictable as the usual formula. It would just have to be something about other than the main themes, like how about a movie that shows that it doesn't always go like it does "in the movies"? In Europe they would have made THAT film, in Hollywood it always has to be a BIG deal...and "winning" in the end.

About KEN LEVINE

Named one of the BEST 25 BLOGS by TIME Magazine. Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer. In a career that has spanned over 30 years Ken has worked on MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS, WINGS, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, BECKER, DHARMA & GREG, and has co-created three series. He and his partner wrote the feature VOLUNTEERS. Ken has also been the radio/TV play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres. and Dodger Talk. He hosts the podcast HOLLYWOOD & LEVINE

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